Determinism and free will .

[Emil]

Before you vote please read the post.

Determinism

Determinism (specifically causal determinism) is the concept that events within a given paradigm are bound by causality, where the second event is a consequence of the first.) in such a way that any state (of an object or event) is, to some large degree, determined by prior states.
(Causality is the relationship between an event (the cause) and a second event (the effect), where the second event is a consequence of the first.)
Hence "determinism" is the name of a broader philosophical view that conjectures that every type of event, including human cognition (behaviour, decision, and action) is causally determined by previous events. In philosophical arguments, the concept of determinism in the domain of human action is often contrasted with free will. The argument called indeterminism (otherwise "nondeterminism") negates causality as a factor and contradicts deterministic argument.

From Wikipedia, Determinism.
Determinism

Varieties of determinism

Causal (or Nomological) determinism [1] generally assumes that every event has an antecedent cause in an infinite causal chain going back to Aristotle's Prime Mover or the beginning of the universe. Determinists believe that there is nothing uncaused or self-caused (causa sui). Research in quantum mechanics complicates this position further (see 'Arguments' section below). Such determinism is sometimes illustrated by the thought experiment of Laplace's demon.

Logical determinism or Determinateness is the notion that all propositions, whether about the past, present, or future, are either true or false. A belief in Causal Determinism along with this Logical Determinism together define what is called 'Hard Determinism' (discussed further below). Note that one can support Causal Determinism without necessarily supporting Logical Determinism (depending on one's views on the nature of time) and vice versa. The problem of free will is especially salient now with Logical Determinism: how can choices be free, given that propositions about the future already have a truth value in the present (i.e. it is already determined as either true or false)? This is referred to as the problem of future contingents.[1] Often synonymous with Logical Determinism are the ideas behind Spatio-temporal Determinism or Eternalism: the view of special relativity. J. J. C. Smart, a proponent of this view, uses the term "tenselessness" to describe the simultaneous existence of past, present, and future. In physics, the "block universe" of Hermann Minkowski and Albert Einstein assumes that time is simply a fourth dimension that already exists (like the three spatial dimensions). In other words, all the other parts of time are real, just like the city blocks up and down one's street, although we only ever perceive one part of time.

From Wikipedia,Varieties of determinism
Varieties of determinism

Free will and determinism


Philosophers have argued that either Determinism is true or Indeterminism is true, but also that 'Free will' either exists or it does not. This creates four possible positions. Compatibilism refers to the view that free will is, in some sense, compatible with Determinism. The three 'Incompatibilist' positions, on the other hand, deny this possibility. They instead suggest there is a dichotomy between determinism and free will (only one can be true).
To the Incompatibilists, one must choose either free will or Determinism, and maybe even reject both. The result is one of three positions:
Metaphysical Libertarianism (free will, and no determinism) a position not to be confused with the more commonly cited Political Libertarianism
Hard Determinism (Determinism, and no free will)
Hard Indeterminism (No Determinism, and no free will either).
Thus, although many Determinists are Compatibilists, calling someone a 'Determinist' is often used to denote the 'Hard Determinist' position.
The Standard argument against free will, according to philosopher J. J. C. Smart focuses on the implications of Determinism for 'free will' [7]. He suggests that, if determinism is true, all our actions are predicted and we are not free; if indeterminism is true, our actions are random and still we do not seem free.

Implications

Some determinists argue that materialism does not present a complete understanding of the universe, because while it can describe determinate interactions among material things, it ignores the minds or souls of conscious beings.
A number of positions can be delineated:
Immaterial souls exist and exert a non-deterministic causal influence on bodies. (Traditional free-will, interactionist dualism).[8][9]
Immaterial souls exist, but are part of deterministic framework.
Immaterial souls exist, but exert no causal influence, free or determined (epiphenomenalism, occasionalism)
Immaterial souls are all that exist (Idealism).
Immaterial souls do not exist — there is no mind-body dichotomy, and there is a Materialistic explanation for intuitions to the contrary.
Another topic of debate is the implication that Determinism has on morality. Hard determinism is particularly criticized for making moral judgements impossible.

From Wikipedia, Free will and determinism
Free will and determinism


For this article Wikipedia mentions following references and bibliography .
And external links.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism#References_and_bibliography

"References and bibliography

Daniel Dennett (2003) Freedom Evolves. Viking Penguin.
John Earman (2007) "Aspects of Determinism in Modern Physics" in Butterfield, J., and Earman, J., eds., Philosophy of Physics, Part B. North Holland: 1369-1434.
George Ellis (2005) "Physics and the Real World," Physics Today.
Epstein J.M. (1999) "Agent Based Models and Generative Social Science," Complexity IV (5).
-------- and Axtell R. (1996) Growing Artificial Societies — Social Science from the Bottom. MIT Press.
Kenrick, D. T., Li, N. P., & Butner, J. (2003) "Dynamical evolutionary psychology: Individual decision rules and emergent social norms," Psychological Review 110: 3–28.
Albert Messiah, Quantum Mechanics, English translation by G. M. Temmer of Mécanique Quantique, 1966, John Wiley and Sons, vol. I, chapter IV, section III.
Nowak A., Vallacher R.R., Tesser A., Borkowski W., (2000) "Society of Self: The emergence of collective properties in self-structure," Psychological Review 107.
Schimbera, Jürgen / Schimbera, Peter: Determination des Indeterminierten. Kritische Anmerkungen zur Determinismus- und Freiheitskontroverse. Verlag Dr. Kovac, Hamburg 23 September 2010, ISBN 978-3-8300-5099-5."
[/SIZE]
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/dfwIntroIndex.htm
http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/determinism.html
http://www.galilean-library.org/int13.html





I am closest to hard determinism.
But I can not accept that I do not have free will.

You?

 

[cosmictraveler]

I'm really confused.:shrug:

 

[spidergoat]

How about determinism and free will?

 

[glaucon]

Mod Note:

Emil,

If you're going to copy swathes of text like that, you are required to provide the source. Not only is this standard academic and journalistic procedure, it also avoids any nasty legal ramifications. What's more, particularly when you're posting definitions, this is of the utmost importance.

You posted this at 11:34 am EST today. I'll give you 24 hours from that time to PM me indicating that you're ready to edit the original post and add your source notation.
Until then, thread closed.

 

[Emil]

How about determinism and free will?

Is a theoretical option not practical.
It is called Compatibilism.
But they define free will as being not free.

Compatibilism
Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are compatible ideas, and that it is possible to believe both without being logically inconsistent.[1] It may, however, be more accurate to say that compatibilists define 'free will' in a way that allows it to co-exist with determinism. Strictly speaking, Compatibilism defines free will as a "freedom to act (according to one's determined motives)".
Compatibilism's definition of 'free will' is contrasted with that of Incompatibilism, which instead defines free will in indeterministic terms.

From Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism

Defining free will


..........................

Schopenhauer said "Man is free to do what he wills,
but he cannot will what he wills" The Compatibilist
calls this limited freedom 'free will'

Compatibilists (aka soft determinists) often define an instance of 'free will' as one in which the agent had freedom to act. That is, the agent was not coerced or restrained. Arthur Schopenhauer famously said "Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills". In other words, although an agent may often be free to act according to a motive, the nature of that motive is determined. The Compatibilist's belief that we often have 'free will' is perhaps better described as a belief in occasional 'freedom to act'. Also note that this definition of free will does not rely on the truth or falsity of Causal Determinism.


Alternatives as imaginary


.................

Saying "there may be a person behind that door"
merely expresses ignorance about the one, determined reality

The Compatibilist will often hold both Causal Determinism (all effects have causes) and Logical Determinism (the future is already determined) to be true. Thus statements about the future (e.g. "it will rain tomorrow") are either true or false when spoken today.
Hume adds that the Compatibilist's free will should not be understood as some kind of ability to have actually chosen differently in an identical situation. The Compatibilist believes that a person always makes the only truly possible decision that they could have.[3] Any talk of alternatives is strictly hypothetical. If the compatibilist says "I may visit tomorrow, or I may not", she is not making a metaphysical claim that there are multiple possible futures. In that case, she is merely describing her uncertainty about what her determined future holds.

From Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism#Defining_free_will

Criticisms


Invalid use of 'free will'

................

Compatibilism has much in common with so-called 'Hard Determinists',
including moral systems and a belief in Determinism itself

Critics of compatibilism often focus on the definition of free will: Incompatibilists may agree that the compatibilists are showing something to be compatible with determinism, but they think that something ought not to be called 'free will'. Incompatibilists might accept the 'freedom to act' as a necessary criterion for free will, but doubt that it is sufficient. Basically, they demand more of 'free will'. The Incompatibilists believe free will refers to genuine (e.g. absolute, ultimate) alternate possibilities for beliefs, desires or actions, rather than merely counterfactual ones.
Faced with the standard argument against free will, many compatibilists choose determinism so that their actions are adequately determined by their reasons, motives, and desires.[5] Compatibilists are sometimes accused (by Incompatibilists) of actually being Hard Determinists who are motivated by a lack of a coherent, consonant moral belief system.
Compatibilists are sometimes called "soft determinists" pejoratively (William James's term). James accused them of creating a "quagmire of evasion" by stealing the name of freedom to mask their underlying determinism.[6] Immanuel Kant called it a "wretched subterfuge" and "word jugglery."[7] Ted Honderich explains that the mistake of Compatibilism is to assert that nothing changes as a consequence of determinism, when clearly we have lost the life-hope of origination.

From Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism#Criticisms

 

[spidergoat]

We are machines that work deterministically, but we can make our own decisions. Computers will be able to do the same thing given similar levels of complexity.

 

[Big Chiller]

I like the compatibilism idea best here though I can't decide on the choices but I refuse to believe in indeterminism. I believe in determinism however not causal determinism as that only leads to infinite regress. If what I believe in is not causal then perhaps it shouldn't be called determinism but it is not random either. Since I believe in non-causal determinism I don't think there's a conflict of quantum mechanics with my belief.

 

[Sarkus]

We are machines that work deterministically, but we can make our own decisions. Computers will be able to do the same thing given similar levels of complexity.

Are not "determinism" and "decision" incompatible?
How are you defining "decision"?

 

[francois]

I'm a hard determinist. The everyday physical world is clearly causal and I can't think of any particular reason to suppose that we aren't also.

Free will is like red. It's something the brain creates because it's useful. There is no such thing as red; it's just an internal label the brain creates in order to quickly identify different EM frequencies. It's fast and useful, but it's not true. Free will is a short cut that enables us to navigate a complex social world, quickly and create stable social units.

There are academics who subscribe that free will is compatible with determinism, which makes no sense to me. They talk about free will as an emergent property that becomes independent of its constituent parts (neurons, body, environment). They talk about "top-down" causality, where organisms and organ systems constrain the behavior of their constituent parts, like neurons, cells, molecules, atoms, etc.

It must be bullcrap. I think the correct way to see it is that nothing is constraining anything. The mind cannot constrain the brain's neurons to do anything that they must not do; otherwise it would be breaking the laws of physics. Top-down causality is impossible. It's nonsense.

I wouldn't say down-up causality is wrong, but a better way to look at it is that the top isn't constraining the bottom and the bottom isn't constraining the top. Rather, life and organisms can be seen as matter swirling through torrents, and momentarily getting stuck in loops. Our constituent molecules are being hurled around like eddies in a stream. Our molecules are stuck in a temporary dance. It's complex, yes, but also entirely deterministic. Nobody's constraining anybody and nobody is breaking any rules.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

There is no point in arguing about determinism if you are a determinist, as you must believe that every argument you make could not have been stated otherwise, and that your opponent will only come to agree with you if he is determined to do so.

 

[Sarkus]

^ But since a determinist can do no other, there is a point if they think there is a point.
Furthermore, I doubt even a hard-determinist can escape the illusion of free-will that seems to be so pervasive, and which is possibly even a prerequisite for self-awareness.

 

[Sarkus]

I'm a hard determinist. The everyday physical world is clearly causal and I can't think of any particular reason to suppose that we aren't also.

Given that QM suggests that outcomes can be / are probabilistic rather than singular for a given set of input conditions at the quantum level... i.e. if you start with the same input, you might not get the same output... how do you reconcile this to your hard-deterministic view?

 

[francois]

Given that QM suggests that outcomes can be / are probabilistic rather than singular for a given set of input conditions at the quantum level... i.e. if you start with the same input, you might not get the same output... how do you reconcile this to your hard-deterministic view?

I don't understand quantum mechanics or physics at the nanoscale. But that's fine, since I don't live there. I live in the middle--somewhere between the very tiny and the colossal--a place that's pretty easy to predict. But even if it weren't deterministic, but probabilistic, that could make thought all the more arbitrary. So where is the space for free will?

 

[Emil]

Given that QM suggests that outcomes can be / are probabilistic rather than singular for a given set of input conditions at the quantum level... i.e. if you start with the same input, you might not get the same output... how do you reconcile this to your hard-deterministic view?

The time dependent Schrödinger equation gives the first time derivative of the quantum state. That is, it explicitly and uniquely predicts the development of the wave function with time.

So if the wave function itself is reality (rather than probability of classical coordinates), quantum mechanics can be said to be deterministic. Since we have no practical way of knowing the exact magnitudes, and especially the phases, in a full quantum mechanical description of the causes of an observable event, this turns out to be philosophically similar to the "hidden variable" doctrine[citation needed].
According to some,[citation needed] quantum mechanics is more strongly ordered than Classical Mechanics, because while Classical Mechanics is chaotic, quantum mechanics is not. For example, the classical problem of three bodies under a force such as gravity is not integrable, while the quantum mechanical three body problem is tractable and integrable, using the Faddeev Equations. This does not mean that quantum mechanics describes the world as more deterministic, unless one already considers the wave function to be the true reality. Even so, this does not get rid of the probabilities, because we can't do anything without using classical descriptions, but it assigns the probabilities to the classical approximation, rather than to the quantum reality.
Asserting that quantum mechanics is deterministic by treating the wave function itself as reality implies a single wave function for the entire universe, starting at the origin of the universe. Such a "wave function of everything" would carry the probabilities of not just the world we know, but every other possible world that could have evolved. For example, large voids in the distributions of galaxies are believed by many cosmologists to have originated in quantum fluctuations during the big bang. (See cosmic inflation and primordial fluctuations.) If so, the "wave function of everything" would carry the possibility that the region where our Milky Way galaxy is located could have been a void and the Earth never existed at all. (See large-scale structure of the cosmos.)

From Wikipedia
Quantum mechanics and classical physics

 

[Sarkus]

I don't understand quantum mechanics or physics at the nanoscale. But that's fine, since I don't live there. I live in the middle--somewhere between the very tiny and the colossal--a place that's pretty easy to predict. But even if it weren't deterministic, but probabilistic, that could make thought all the more arbitrary. So where is the space for free will?

I'm not arguing for free-will, but just clarification on your position. Personally I'm in the "free-will is an illusion" because I understand things to be either deterministic or random (probabilistic).
For free-will to exist, as I see it, would require an uncaused intervention, ensuring a certain outcome. And I can't see how this would happen.

 

[Sarkus]

From Wikipedia
Quantum mechanics and classical physics

Emil - I am capable of investigating wiki, thanks. And try to add something of your own rather than just posting from other sources.

Further, if you read the above, it states that the idea of the universe being a single wave-function does not remove the probabilistic nature of the wave-funtcion:

"Such a "wave function of everything" would carry the probabilities of not just the world we know, but every other possible world that could have evolved."

 

[Emil]

And try to add something of your own rather than just posting from other sources.

With my summary knowledge about QM,I am not able to deny determinism or defended In terms of QM.So I'm interested conclusions QM specialists.
Wiki concludes:"...quantum mechanics can be said to be deterministic."
If a specialist in QM has another opinion please a link, not only his opinion, so I can compare.

My opinion about the main question.
Briefly.
My logic, my reason says "hard determinism"-True
My feelings, my senses say "free will"-True
But "determinism" and "free will" are incompatible-True

so ... so ... so ... I think that is when a artificial intelligence blow up or entering a infinite loop.
I am curious if you solved this problem and how you solved.

 

[francois]

I'm not arguing for free-will, but just clarification on your position. Personally I'm in the "free-will is an illusion" because I understand things to be either deterministic or random (probabilistic).
For free-will to exist, as I see it, would require an uncaused intervention, ensuring a certain outcome. And I can't see how this would happen.

I guess then, the question is, does the quantum probabilistic nature of particles affect us at our scale? Physics are very different at the tiny scale than the medium scale. Can you imagine life if basketballs and cars and wives kept flipping in and out of existence and into different dimensions every second?

People like to make a lot out of quantum weirdness, saying stuff like, well, maybe it's true AND not true (in reference to something mundane)! But that shit doesn't apply to our everyday lives. We're big, goddamnit!

 

[Captain Kremmen]

^ But since a determinist can do no other, there is a point if they think there is a point.
Furthermore, I doubt even a hard-determinist can escape the illusion of free-will that seems to be so pervasive, and which is possibly even a prerequisite for self-awareness.

Granted. But that would make no difference to their arguments at all.
I don't mind people arguing for determinism as long as they understand that it is pointless.

My own belief is that we have a kernel of free will, but nowhere near as much as we imagine we have.
That wasn't on the voting list.

 

[wesmorris]

I tend to think that the concepts of determinism and free will are ill-formed.

Free will is always constrained but within those constraints lies choice.

I'm much more entertained by the notion of "instant destiny".